


Stop haunting me

by elletromil



Series: To fall at your feet [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M, Remix of one of my own fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 02:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11370588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elletromil/pseuds/elletromil
Summary: Oh, it’s a nice fantasy to think Eggsy has become a Knight, has taken up his mantel. That Merlin is still stubbornly alive and fighting to save the world. That they would find him after all this time and welcome him back like the prodigal son. But that’s just it. It’s a nice fantasy that he’s had too often.Whatever this is, it’s simply another of Poppy’s mindgames.





	Stop haunting me

**Author's Note:**

> So in the weeks after I saw the trailer for the sequel for the first time, I kept thinking of my fic 'I'm not calling you a ghost' and how it could work with Harry being the one doubting his sanity instead. And because I have no chill and I can I decided to do a remix of my own fic.
> 
> Of course we don't know yet what's up with Harry in the sequel, but I wrote this under the assumption that wherever Harry is, he's being held captive by Poppy. That's pretty much what you need to know.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story :

Harry wakes up in a infirmary bed, feeling extremely sore. His body protests painfully when he tries to move and he abandons the idea quickly.

He’s confused as to his change of location, wonders why he isn’t in his padded cell anymore. Knows better than to believe his recollection of the past few days, that he’s been saved from his imprisonment.

He’s been toyed with too many times before while being used as Poppy’s very own lab rat for her to experiment her drugs on. He simply cannot trust himself.

Oh, it’s a nice fantasy to think Eggsy has become a Knight, has taken up his mantel. That Merlin is still stubbornly alive and fighting to save the world. That they would find him after all this time and welcome him back like the prodigal son. But that’s just it. It’s a nice fantasy that he’s had too often.

Whatever this is, it’s simply another of Poppy’s mindgames.

Or he’s broken down for real, the damage of everything that has been done finally taking its toll, delusions and reality mashing together to create a world to Harry’s liking.

A world where he’s sharing an infirmary ward with Merlin, the man asleep in what looks like the most uncomfortable plastic chair in the world, and Eggsy, lying in another bed, his dear boy wrapped in one bandage too many but _alive_ , his chest rising and falling in a calm rhythm in his sleep.

Yes. Maybe Harry is indeed crazy now.

But as he fights off sleep to stare at the images conjured by his tired mind, he thinks that maybe insanity isn’t so bad after all.

It’s pathetic, but it’s not like he has an ounce of dignity left in his old body. It was only a matter of time before he would give in completely.

*

He wakes up slightly less sore, but completely alone this time.

At least that is what he thinks until someone clears their throat rather pointedly at his side. He keeps forgetting that his peripheral vision isn’t the same now that he’s only got the one eye. Slowly he turns his head, fully expecting to see Poppy, looking down on him with her smug smile, but he couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Jack? What are you doing here?” For a short moment, he feels himself starting to panic. Could it be that Statesman is now working for the enemy? He knows very little of what happened to the world after he failed to stop Valentine, except that chaos must have erupted everywhere.

He would never have believed it if someone had told him Jack was a turncoat, but what does he know about anyone really? If anything from his earlier delusions is real, than Chester, a man he had been following for years had betrayed everything Kingsman stands for. If it is indeed true, if the old classist git is the reason why Harry was left for dead on a hot Kentucky pavement, he cannot say he is really that surprised. But it just goes to show you never know what someone will do when presented with an opportunity.

“I’m checking up on our patient, is what I’m doing. You scared the shit out of us when you collapsed, but from what the doctor told us, it’s a miracle you could even function with all the drugs in your system.” Jack pats his elbow with rather more force than should be necessary, but Harry welcomes the slight pain gladly. Things are more likely to be real if it hurts. “Well I say “told us” but it was more him yelling at us for not bringing you here as soon as we freed you from Poppy. Absinthe is a feisty little shit when he wants to, even scared Merlin.”

He perks up at Merlin’s mention, but doesn’t ask about him yet. It still feels too much like a trap and Harry isn’t a spy for nothing. Paranoia has been his first personality trait for well over twenty years now.

“What happened to Poppy?”

“Apprehended and ended over to the proper authorities. With Tequila posing as a guard until we can sniff out all her contacts who could orchestrate a prison break.”

The way he mentions Tequila, like Harry should know who that is when he had never even heard of the codename a week ago, _that_ makes him think that maybe, just maybe, he hasn’t hallucinate the past few days. Or at least not everything.

Jack has mentioned Merlin, but said nothing of Eggsy. If his boy had been there, if he hadn’t been a figment of his tortured mind, the injuries he had seemed to have sustained would mean he would still be on bedrest, would still be _here_.

But he’s not.

“Where’s Merlin?” He might not be sure that everything has been real, but it’s time to take a few risks. Anyway, if he’s truly become crazy, he’ll have to tell someone.

“With everyone else, debriefing with Ginger. Something you’ll have to go through too, as soon as Absinthe clears you for even the light duty.”

Jack laughed at the face he must make over the news, but this time when he pats his elbow, Harry cannot suppress his wince.

“Ah, sorry, forgot it’s not just drugs, you’ve been caught in an explosion too. How are you feeling?”

He could lie, but he’s decided that until proven wrong, he could trust Jack. And while they aren’t friends in the same way him and Merlin are, the fact that they had been the two senior agents with the most successful rate in their respective branch had always given them the impression they had more in common then they knew.

“I feel like coming out of a very bad trip after being run over by a train.”

“Yeah, stupid question. I’d offer morphine, but the good doctor is rather against filling you up with more drugs at the moment.”

It’s not often that Harry agrees with medical staff, but that is definitely an order he won’t be contesting.

“You should get more rest, the debrief should take a while still, if mine was anything to go by.”

Harry doesn’t feel particularly sleepy, but that’s without counting on the cowboy songs Jack is singing under his breath that lulls him into a light sleep.

When he wakes up again, the only indication that any time has passed at all is the dim lightning simulating nighttime and Whiskey’s absence at his side.

Merlin hasn’t taken his place like he might have expected, but in the bed next to his, he can spot what is undeniably Eggsy’s form.

He’s still wrapped in bandages but he looks peaceful in his slumber and Harry would reach out to him if only he didn’t fear banishing the ghost when his fingers would only close on empty air.

Or worst, that they would brush warm skin and he couldn’t deny anymore that he had truly lost it. That even his sense of touch and pain couldn’t be relied on. That he would have to doubt even the reality of Jack and his cheesy songs of a man and his horse.

Because no matter how heart-wrenching that reality is, he knows that Eggsy couldn’t possibly be alive.

*

Harry wakes up with a stranger hovering over him and he doesn’t even think about it, just punch the bloke in the face, no matter how painful moving still is.

He knows he hasn’t hit as hard as he could once have, but the stranger is clearly caught by surprise and falls back on his arse, blinking comically as he processes exactly just what has happened.

Harry is about to try to get out of bed and just _run_ , when he’s distracted by a carefree laugh he thought he would never hear again. Instead of fleeing, he finds himself frozen in place, staring at someone he knows cannot be there.

“Mr Hart, please calm down. You’re still in Statesman infirmary.” If Harry didn’t already know that Eggsy was only a figment of his imagination, the way the Statesman doctor seem to be completely ignoring him as he slowly gets back up on his feet would have finished convincing him. “I am sorry for the rude wake-up call. I’m Absinthe, the doctor who’s been tending to you since they brought you here.”

He shakes the offered hand, refusing to be ashamed for what was completely healthy instincts for a spy in unusual settings. If anything, the doctor looks pleased that his reflexes don’t seem to have been affected by whatever happened to him at Poppy’s hand.

He asks a few routine questions while he checks him over and Harry does his best not to stare at the hallucination who’s looking over the proceedings.

If the doctor notices his fixation on what is an empty bed to anyone who hasn’t lost their mind, he decides not to say anything about it yet.

After all, as Harry is kindly reminded, there are still a few drugs coursing through his veins, some of them no one has any idea of the effects since they were Poppy’s experiments.

Maybe Harry should tell him, but he doesn’t entirely trust the stranger yet. And if he is honest, even if it’s a waking dream conjured by his tortured mind, he finds unwilling to give Eggsy up.

All those months of captivity, he tried his best not to think of the boy he had so cruelly let down. He hadn’t want his memories to be tainted by Poppy.

But if he’s really saved, then he’s got nothing to lose keeping the fantasy to himself for a little longer.

If he’s  truly lost his sanity, time won’t change a thing.

And after everything he’s given, he feels like he deserves a bit of good, no matter how twisted it would seem to others.

The doctor leave him about half an hour later, Eggsy’s apparition now asleep in the bed next to him. He should probably do the same, follow Absinthe’s parting advice to get as much rest as possible, but even if he knows it’s only a figment of his imagination, there is something hypnotic in the slow rise and fall of Eggsy’s chest.

For all he knows, Eggsy might be long dead now or, if he did survived Valentine’s mad plan, he surely wouldn’t waste a second on Harry. But for now, for a precious moment in time, he’s alive and relatively well.

Without his noticing, Harry finds himself matching his own breathing on the young man’s and, before he knows it, loses his battle against sleep.

*

Eggsy is still in the bed next to him, but this time he’s sitting up and looking at him with what looks like impatience. His expression softens when he realises that Harry’s eyes are open, but his smile doesn’t entirely smooth out the wrinkles of worries Harry doesn’t remember him having.

“Finally awake? Can I come sit on your bed or are you going to punch me too?”

He shakes his head, not bothering to tell Eggsy he doubts his fist would connect with anything but air anyway since he’s only an illusion.

He would swear he feels the bed dip under Eggsy’s weight when he sits at his sides, but the ghost starts speaking before Harry can truly wonder about it.

“I’m so sorry Harry. I know you said it was okay, but I still feel like shit for not going back for you. Or insisting that Merlin did. It was just so crazy after V-Day, but it’s not really an excuse for making sure your were really… that you were… you know-”

“Dead?” he offers, not unkindly, when it’s clear Eggsy cannot say the word. Maybe he shouldn’t interact with the hallucination, but after years of talking to his dead dog to fill the silence in his big house, this isn’t so weird. At least, now he can pretend he’s actually holding a conversation. “I thought I was at the time, I can’t be mad for you thinking the same.”

In the early weeks of his captivity, Poppy had tried to provoke him into a rage, to persuade him that his friends had betrayed him and abandoned him.

But even weak has he had been, the horror of having been ripped of his control in that church had made him determined not to be manipulated in any way again. Had made him reject all of Poppy’s suggestions and closed himself off to her. He dreads to think what would have happened to the little humanity he had left if he had failed.

His sanity is a small price to have paid in exchange of still being able to look at his own reflection.

Had Eggsy not been the ghost of his failures, he might have felt self-conscious about losing himself in the painful memories, but when he looks at him again, he’s only met with a sympathetic gaze. Which makes sense. Of course his hallucination would know all about his past ordeal and be understanding.

“Still, we should have done _something_.”

“Eggsy… Considering the way I treated you before I left, I wouldn’t blame you for leaving me to rot even if you had known I was still alive.”

Lord knows Harry feels he deserves far worse for how he had acted back then, lashing out against Eggsy so he wouldn’t have to admit his own faults. He half expects Eggsy to agree with him, since he’s kind of talking to himself after all, but instead, he looks horrified.

“Do you... do you really think I would have done that? Is that what you really think of me?” He looks seconds away from being sick, his eyes even more betrayed than during their parting fight and for a moment, Harry can only stare, surprised.

Of course he doesn’t think Eggsy would have had it in him to be so petty, even if he had hated Harry with all his being. He’s proven time and time again that he’s got more compassion than the world deserves to be shown.

“No, of course not,” he reaches out to him, forgetting that he shouldn’t be able to touch him. But instead of empty air, his hand closes on a warm thigh and he knows in that moment that any hopes of salvation are gone. If he can interact physically with his fantasy, he’s way past the point of helping. “I know you would have found a way to save me, even if I didn’t deserve it. Which makes me regret even more never apologizing to you.”

 _That_ ’s what he should have told Eggsy before leaving his house, instead of that shite about fixing things when he’d get back. The only thing that needed fixing had been himself and oh, how cruel is the world for him to realise it only now that he’s completely broken?

“But you were right… I mean, Arthur was a dick, but I completely blew it, like I always did with stuff that matters before. I should have trusted you and I-”

He squeezes Eggsy’s thigh gently, cutting him off.

“I gave you no real reason to trust me to that extent. I was angry at myself for not seeing that you wouldn’t shoot an innocent no matter what. But it’s easier to be angry at others than it is to be at yourself.”

Eggsy chuckles a bit, a humorless sound and his hand closes around Harry’s.

“I’m not so sure about that, I’ve managed it pretty well so far.”

Before he can continue his cathartic discussion with himself, Merlin strides into the room, looking happier than he’s ever been before when he notices that Harry is awake. Some tension he wasn’t aware of feeling unwinds over seeing his old friend up and about. It is a true shame that Merlin won’t stay so happy for long after he’s realised just how damaged Harry is.

“Ah good, you’re both awake. And hopefully having a long overdue heart-to-heart.”

“Piss off Merlin,” Eggsy’s obviously aiming for exasperated, but there’s humor and fondness in his eyes and his hand tightens just bit around Harry’s, as if unwilling to let go.

Not that Harry wishes for Eggsy to go anywhere, but if he’s a hallucination, they’re kind of stuck together anyway.

It’s about that time that Merlin’s words register and he notices how Merlin alternates between looking at him and what should be the empty space where Eggsy’s ghost sits.

“Oh… Are you a hallucination too?”

“What?” They both say it at the same time, both now staring at him with confused horror.

He feels a bit like an idiot, explaining the obvious, but they’re not really giving him any choice either.

“Well, I know Eggsy’s just a hallucination, so if you can see him, clearly you’re one too. And I am probably even crazier than I first thought.”

He doesn’t expects Eggsy’s pained sound at the revelation, nor the way he suddenly finds himself in a tight embrace, but the two pairs of strong arms around him makes him doubt his insanity for the first time. Never, not even in his happier dreams, has he felt quite as safe as he is now, held by the two men he would trust with everything that he’s got. His sick mind could never have conjured up such a perfect fantasy.

Even the words whispered against his ear are a less tangible proof than the brush of Eggsy’s chapped lips against his skin, their imperfection striking him as more real than anything he’s experienced since he was shot and left for dead on a hot pavement in Kentucky.

“ _You’re not crazy, you’re not crazy, you’re not crazy._ ”

*

There are still times when Harry isn’t sure if he hasn’t lost his grip on reality after all, but being out of Statesman’s infirmary helps him believing his senses. Statesman HQ looks like nothing he’s seen before and he’s never been one with much imagination.

His frequent conversations with Eggsy helps too, every new details about their time apart a surprise to Harry, further proof of how real he is.

Even the feelings Eggsy freely admits to have for him are just one more example that Harry’s sane.

If it was truly a fantasy, then Eggsy would have had no scruples in starting something with him, instead of insisting they take it slow and that Harry gets an all-clear from a shrink before they do anything.

If it was but an illusion, Harry wouldn’t be so frustrated when a kiss on the cheek is the most he can get away with.

But this is real and because it is, his frustration evaporates whenever he glances at Eggsy’s happy blush.

Because it’s real, Harry is willing to give Eggsy everything that he wants and deserves. He’ll do everything to built up the trust that should always have been between them.

It’ll take time, but they’ll get there.


End file.
